It was an early start from Denver. We were on the road at 7:15am with a thousand km’s of driving stretching ahead of us that day. And drive we did out of Colorado into Wyoming. Well I drove the whole 950km’s to Billings. It took us 11 hours to get there and over two tanks of gas. We were pushing the old corolla hard and trying to keep at 75mph (120 km/h) considering the route was a straight flat twin lane highway. Due to pushing the car hard with two bikes creating drag, we also encountered 100km/h winds as we drove back along the prairie flats. I’d never driven in anything this windy in my life. I could only maintain 100 km/h while gripping the wheel to keep the car from being buffeted off the road. ... read more

I had been iching to get some mountain biking in and since Moab was known as the mountainbiking mecca of the USA it had been my main motivation to come to this place. So I got some repairs done to my bike and headed out to ride the famous slickrock tracks, while Naomi did a spot of hiking in Archers national park. The ride I did today was up to the top of a rock mountain. The road was a bumpy and sandy 4x4 road. I allowed 3 4x4’s to go ahead of me but quickly overtook them while I bumped my way up the hill over the slickrock and through the thick sand. It was tough going and the lungs were burning. To stay on the track I had to either follow the tyre tracks ... read more

Today we drove 4 hours from Zion down to the north rim of the grand canyon. It’s a decent drive to get to either north or south rim. We drove through a forest which turned into charred trees. We later learned that a fire that summer had burnt thousands of hectares of forest in grand canyon national park. The canyon is impressive even if it was not what I expected. It’s probably at least a couple of km’s deep from the rim to the base. The hazy air which tainted the view was apparently caused by a nearby factory, so the photographs didn’t turn out very well. The south rim was viewable from where we stood at the side of canyon, only 16 km’s across but a 6 hour drive to get around to the other ... read more

My first impression of this place is possibly the same as every other tourist who visits here for the first time. WOW. Vegas really turns itself on for the tourists. The strip is where all the big hotels are located dotted along each side of the boulevard. They are all vying with each other for who has the most glitzy and glamorous hotel and casino. To achieve this many of them have free shows, for example circus circus has free live circus performer shows every half an hour in its casino. Bellagio has a volcano in its water fountain, and the best one for us - the Mirage has a water show in its outdoor lake every 15 minutes. The electricity bill in Vegas must be gigantic. There are neon lights for Africa. Everything has lights ... read more

We had our first look at death valley in the morning! It really is an amazing place for a desert. Canyons have been formed from the ice age and further shaped by flash flooding. There are multiple rock formations out here, limestone, marble, sand, salt, granite and many different forms of animal life. After walking through “mosaic” canyon we took a tour at Scotty’s castle. The irony in this is that this 2 million dollar castle was built pretty well in the middle of nowhere by a wealthy millionaire who was duping into the desert by a conman (Scotty) who clamed to have a hugely successful goldmine at his feet. Well the castle has now become a national monument and the national park gives tours of the castle and underground tunnel system. We were well impressed ... read more